Angkor is a temple complex in northwestern
Cambodia, near the town of Siem Reap. Angkor Wat is a major temple within
this group. Angkor flourished between the 9th century and the 13th century.
Besides being a religious center, it was also a royal residence and administrative
center for the area from Vietnam to the Bay of Bengal, and north to Yunnan
(in China). Originally based on the Hindu religion, it became more Buddhist
influenced. Angkor was a symbolic universe, with a central mountain or pyramid
temple, and waterways to represent the central ocean.
Back

Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible had the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed
in 1554-1560 to commemorate military victories over the Tartars. On Red
Square in Moscow, it is a beautiful building with ten domes, each a different
size and color. Back

Cliff Dwellings built by
Native Americans are found in the southwestern United States, in Arizona,
Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. Found in dry areas, they are often tucked
under cliffs, and situated so that they can be easily defended. Garments
of cotton and leather, pottery and wood utensils have been found in these
"apartment houses" carved out of the sandstone rock. The larger buildings
have room for dozens of families. They were abandoned about 1300; no one
knows why. Back

Easter Island in the Pacific
Ocean, 2300 miles (3700 km) from the western coast of South America, has
over 600 statues, the largest of which is 37 feet tall. There are unfinished
statues that are even larger. Carved of native stone, most of these huge
statues depict faces. Tradition on the island say that the statues represent
important people who have been deified after death, and memorialized by
the statues. It was an amazing engineering feat for people without machinery
to transport and raise statues of that size.
Back

The Eiffel Tower,
in Paris, France, is built of wrought iron in an open lattice pattern. It
was commissioned for the Centennial Exposition to commemorate the French
Revolution. Designed by Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, the 984 foot tower (300
meters) astonished people by the speed at which it was built. Erected in
1889, for many years it was the tallest structure in the world. Incidentally,
Monsieur Eiffel also designed the framework for the Statue of Liberty; he
is the only person to have designed two of the monuments in this program.
Back

The Forbidden City lies within
the Inner City of Beijing, China. Surrounded by a 35 foot (11 meter) wall,
it originally contained many palaces, including those of the emperor and
his family (1421-1911 AD). Now it serves as museums and parks.
Back

The Golden Pavilion is a
Buddhist shrine in Japan. The temple is set in a garden, with a reflecting
lake. Built of wood, the temple has been rebuilt exactly as it was, at intervals
of a specific number of years. The current Golden Pavilion is identical
to the original. Back

The Great Buddha (the Daibutsu),
at a shrine at Kamakura, Japan, is 42 feet high. Built in 1252, the bronze
statue shows a serene, seated Buddha, meditating.
Back

Mali's king Mansa Musa ordered the building of the
Great Mosque of Timbuktu
after his pilgrimage to Mecca. It was started in 1324, and completed in
about 1332, after Musa had died. Back

The Great Wall of China,
built along the along the northern border of the empire, runs for over 4,000
miles (6,437 km), and is perhaps the largest man-made structure in the world.
The authoritarian emperor Shih Huang Ti ordered the building of the wall
in 214 BC, which in places involved connecting pieces of earlier walls,
some of which date to the 4th century BC. The work involved the forced labor
of huge numbers of peasants, of whom many thousands died during its construction.
Back

The Great Zimbabwe, in the
African nation of Zimbabwe, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers, is a
series of stone enclosures, seemingly built as a political and religious
center in the 1200's. The walls of the enclosure are up to 30 feet high
(9.15 meters) high, built without mortar, some of them with elaborate patterns
in the stonework. Because there are no written records, we can only surmise
the purpose and uses of the Great Zimbabwe, and its passageways, stairs,
and walls inside of walls. It seems certain that part of it was used as
a residence for a chief, probably of the Shona tribe. The Great Zimbabwe
complex was abandoned, very likely because the land around it had become
less fertile. Back

Machu Pichu is an ancient fortress
city of the Incas in the high Andes of Peru. Re-discovered in 1911 by Hiram
Bingham, this "lost city" is believed to have been built as an escape by
the Incas from the Spanish conquerors. Eight thousand feet up in the mountains,
the city contains a temple, citadel, terraced gardens and irrigation system.
Back

Mayan Temples are found in the
Yucatan peninsula (the piece that sticks out to the east, dividing the Gulf
of Mexico from the Caribbean) of Mexico, and south into Central America.
The Mayans made accurate astronomical observations, invented zero, made
a sophisticated calendar, and wrote in a hieroglyphic language. Unfortunately,
the Spanish burned almost all the Mayan books, so our knowledge of the Mayan
civilization is limited. The cities containing the elaborately carved Mayan
temples were abandoned about 800 AD, and the temples were covered up by
the surrounding jungle. Back

The huge Minaret of the Great
Mosque of Samarra was built in the 800's under the Abbasid caliphs.
It was built when the capital of the Muslim empire shifted to Iraq, and
the Muslim religion was no longer specifically Arab. Samarra is just north
of Baghdad, in Iraq. Back

Notre Dame is located on the Ile
de la Cit�, an island in the Seine, in Paris, France. It was started in
1163 and mostly finished by 1240 (two spires which were in the original
design have never been built.) With its pointed arches and light-filled
construction, it is considered a masterpiece of the High Middle Ages. It
has the original 13th century stained glass in its three rose windows. Notre
Dame de Paris means Our Lady of Paris. It was built as a Christian cathedral
to honor the Virgin Mary, mother of Christ. Back

The Parthenon, on the Acropolis
at Athens, Greece, was the chief temple of Athena. Built at the direction
of Pericles, it was completed in 432 BC. Originally it contained a huge
statue of Athena, as well as the sculptures on the outside, all supervised
by Phidias. Built in the Doric style, out of white marble, most of the sculpture
is now gone. Back

The Pyramids are the only one of
the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World still in existence. Built about 2500
BC, the pyramids are older than any of the other man-made monuments. Located
on the west side of the Nile Valley, the pyramid of Khufu (Cheops, in Greek)
was 481 feet tall, and 775 feet on each side of its base. Stone has been
removed over the years, including the finished stone on the exterior, so
it is somewhat smaller now. Built as a tomb for the pharaoh, it is joined
by other, smaller pyramids built for other pharaohs, and members of the
royal family. Back

The Roman Coliseum is an ancient
amphitheater built around 80 AD to hold 50,000 people or more. It had four
tiers of marble seats surrounding the arena, with rooms, ramps, and elevators
below the arena floor for men and animals waiting to go into the arena.
Once the wooden arena floor was removed, and the arena filled with water,
for a mock sea battle. It is 615 feet long (190 meters), 157 feet high,
made of concrete, bricks and stone. When the Romans used it, there was an
enormous canvas canopy to shield spectators from the sun. The Romans staged
cruel spectacles in the Coliseum, where men fought animals and each other
to the death. Back

The Statue of Christ
the Redeemer on Corcovado Mt. stands over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The one hundred foot (30 meter) concrete statue, designed by Paul Landowski,
was finished in 1931. When lighted at night, the statue appears to be a
giant cross guarding the city. Back

The Statue of Liberty (originally
named Liberty Enlightening the World) is 305 feet (93 meters) tall from
base to the top of the torch. Showing a woman holding a tablet and lifting
a torch aloft, it was sculpted of copper hammered over steel by Frederic-Auguste
Bartholdi, with a framework made by Eiffel. It was a gift from France to
the United States in 1884. Visitors can go up to the crown, and see a panoramic
view of the New York harbor. Back

Stonehenge was built in the late
Neolithic ("new stone") Age/Early Bronze Age, about 1800-1400 BC. Located
on the Salisbury plain, west of London, England, it consists of gigantic
standing stones, arranged roughly in two concentric circles. Some of the
stones are Bluestones, a form of igneous rock that comes from southern Wales.
The effort to get these stones to Stonehenge must have been enormous. Some
of the pairs of stones have lintel stones across them, and some are arranged
as if to mark the sun's position on the horizon for the Summer solstice.
Stonehenge must have been religious in intent, but the meaning of the stones'
arrangement remains unknown. Back

The Sydney Opera House
was completed in 1973 from the design by Jorn Utzon. The highest shell roof
stands 221 feet high above the Sydney harbor; complicated computer calculations
were required to build it and the white ceramic tiles to cover it. Made
of concrete and glass, the building was designed to offer spectacular views
from inside, and also to be itself part of a spectacular view of the harbor.
Back

The Taj Mahal, in Agra, India,
was built by Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz-I-Mahal. It was started
in 1632, after she died in childbirth, and finished in 1653. The exterior
is white marble, set with jade, turquoise, lapis lazuli, chrysolite and
mother-of-pearl. It has four minarets, each 133 feet high, and reflecting
pools to mirror the beauty of the building. Back

Tower Bridge across the Thames
River in London, England is often confused with London Bridge. Construction
of Tower Bridge was begun in 1886 and finished in 1894. London Bridge was
built in 1831, replacing a 12th century stone bridge which had replaced
a 10th century wooden bridge. The last are the bridges of the song "London
Bridge is falling down . . ." In 1968 the 1831 London Bridge was dismantled
and sold to a developer who reassembled it in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
Tower Bridge is built primarily from steel with a cover of stone to imitate
the Gothic Style that Parliament demanded for a major structure next to
the Tower of London. The towers contain machinery to raise the central drawbridges
and to run elevators to take pedestrians to the upper walkway so they could
cross while the drawbridge was raised. Back

Uluru / Ayers Rock Once considered to
be the world's largest
monolith, rising 1143 feet (348 meters) above the desert. (A monolith is
a single piece of rock) It is 4 miles long by 1 mile wide. It is called
Uluru by the native Australians, who consider it to be sacred. Varying with
the time of day and the weather, the rock appears to change color. Back

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